Failed Christianity and Trees

Some thoughts for Sunday's sermon ...

The church turned Christianity into a "God will help you all the time; just call on him" … we carry god around with us like a superstitious person carries a rabbit's foot or a lucky pebble in the pocket … with the bible nothing more than a cereal box of Lucky Charms into which we dip for some lucky bible verse to see us through, empower us, or make us superior to others … sadly, this kind of Christianity hasn't made us stronger or better in the LORD, but weaker, teaching us that it's our fault if the lucky charm doesn't work.

Rather than giving us the courage to live, and to live well, it's made us frightened and self-condemning, and condemning of others, too.

We do well to remember the little remembered book of Esther - there isn't one mention of god in it … because the writer knows that we already know enough of God and Self to do what's needed, and that's to protect one another against the evil that exists in our world …

Knowing that evil can be defeated when we stand with one another … and stand with the trees and the wolves and the whales and the oceans, too, to protect all of it from evil, which is sometimes ourselves, the greed of our soul, which is all too ready to sacrifice others, even the world, to satisfy whatever our need might be.

The church would rather keep us dependent and confused rather than visionary and loving. Has Christianity failed the world? Clearly. Does this render it meaningless?

I don't think so ... but it calls into question what the church has done with it - from fiery pentecostals and their fumings or polite pulpit pundits who soothe souls wearied, not by good works, but from the failure to grasp life's purpose, so they can gain a few moments of rest and return the world on Monday, not with a changed mind and heart, but a stubborn determination to keep on trying to make greed work.

Perhaps like John Muir, we would do well to contemplate a tree - "I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do."